Riverhouse reborn as plant-based palace
Old Riverhouse reborn as plant-based palace
While COVID-19, the Armageddon of restaurants, has forced eateries to downsize or die, there is a new entry that is going big in one of Fort Lauderdale’s oldest buildings.
Jonny NoBones Old Riverhouse Vegan Village opened at 30 SW Third Ave. with no fanfare, seemingly counter to everything its mile-a-minute namesake beams out with his big personality.
“We opened Aug. 4, right after my birthday, a full moon and a hurricane,” says NoBones. “It was really a perfect story. We even have a drink here called the Jonny Perfect Storm.”
Tucked away behind Himmarshee Village, the Riverhouse is on the bank of the New River between the Broward Center for the Performing Arts and the new hi-rise apartment building Society Las Olas.
Built in 1903, it is the second oldest building (behind the 1901 Stranahan House) in Fort Lauderdale, originally the home of city fathers Tom and Reed Bryan. The city bought the property in 1976 and leased it to various restaurant brands including the Historic Bryan Homes Restaurant, the Chart House, Reed’s River House Restaurant and the River House
Restaurant.
In 2015, the city leased the site to James Campbell, NoBones’ business partner, who envisioned a tourist welcome center and home base for Riverfront Cruises and Anticipation Yacht Charters. It has mostly been used for special events.
NoBones promises that — in addition to his signature “vegan comfort food” — soon the Riverhouse’s history will include:
A sushi bar, coffee bar and an outside juice bar, tapas bar, vegan full liquor bar, ramen bar and a tea café.
There will also be a riverboat for Intracoastal cruises (about $28 per person) and a Tiki Queen Vegan Dinner Cruise ($100 per person) taking off from the dock on the other side of the pedestrian path of Riverwalk Linear Park.
Later this fall he will have a curated farmer’s market outside on Riverhouse’s patios and alongside Riverwalk.
Much later there will be a separate restaurant where Rok:Brgr used to be in Himmarshee Village at 208 SW Second St., two blocks away from the Museum of Discovery and Science and behind the Riverhouse. The
smaller restaurant will be “Coyote Ugly meet Jonny NoBones,” he says. “It’ll be open really late in the night. It’ll be a vegan dive bar. Where else can you get a vegan ’Oysta’ po’ boy?”
“My whole thing is it takes a village, you know,” he adds, before laying out what is currently in the restaurant on weekends.
“Right now I have a plant shop, a jewelry shop, I have an artist, I have a person selling handmade artisan soaps, a guy who sets up a vintage record store. All the spaces in here we’re not using for dining are being used for products. We’ll have … vegan caviar, pumpkin seed oil. I’ll have a juice bar and a vegan sushi bar. I can’t wait for that.”
NoBones, a moniker from his catering days and appearances on the Food Network, recalls that all he
did that Tuesday after Hurricane Isaias passed South Florida was, “Open the door. And foodie groupies, who have followed my whole career, came. The Garden Room was reserved all day and a couple of outside tables were reserved all day.”
Those fans know “Boston born and bred” NoBones from working with well-known chefs Lydia Shire and Susan Regis before catering A-list events (Mötley Crüe, Ralph Lauren, Herb Ritts, Gianni Versace) as well as his more recent work in veganism at Utopia Juice Bar in Pompano Beach and Vegan Farmacy in Fort Pierce.
That’s where he began perfecting his vegan comfort food, dishes such as vegan steak frites, Toona Tartar over yuzu avocado smash and a burger that makes the chef the reigning Plant-Based Burger Battle champion from the 2019 SEED Food and Wine
Week festival. That winning dish is called a “What the Duck — No Harm, No Fowl” Burger.
“People think that vegans don’t drink, have sex or party,” NoBones says. “I have a full bar. I have ‘chicken’ wings. I serve ceviche. Eighty percent of my customers are not vegan. I’m immersed in it. I live it. I roll over in the bed and I get stabbed by cookbooks.”
His career change to vegan cooking has “been a lifelong journey. I had an epiphany. It’s really about compassion for me. But also, when you stop eating dead animals, you feel differently about the planet and other people. You’re just kinder.
“If you go vegan for even 30 days, you’re going to have a whole new view of the world.”
For reservations, call 954-233-2667. For more information, go to RiverhouseVeganVillage.com.